There’d been a big improvement in Reg’s mood since the evacuees had come, Bobby had noticed. He smiled now – sometimes as many as three or four times in a day. Occasionally he even forgot to pretend to be grumpy. And as angry as he’d been with Charlie when he’d brought Ace home from the show, one look at how the girls’ faces shone while they played with the little dog had melted the man, just as Bobby had predicted it would.
She’d been waiting to find Reg in a good mood before she brought up the subject of Charlie and the answer she still owed him. She did so now.
‘Reg?’
‘Mmm?’ Reg put Ace the Wonder Dog (Junior) down on the floor and he scampered off to find Barney or Winnie. The two aged wolfhounds were far too mature and sedate to want to play his puppy games, but nevertheless he lived in hope.
‘Um, it isn’t long now until Charlie leaves, is it?’ Bobby said, tapping her pencil nervously against the desk.
‘Aye, I know. And?’
‘And, well, I told you he’d made me a proposal.’
He glanced at her. ‘You’re not trying to tell me the pair of you are planning to get wed soon, are you?’
‘No.Perhaps. What I mean to say is, I don’t know. I wanted to ask what you thought about it.’
‘I’ve told you what I think. Happen as a wife you’d do the lad good. You’re a steady, hard-working sort with a sensible head on your shoulders. Whether our Charlie would do you the same amount of good as a husband is what worries me.’
‘I don’t mean about whether we’re right for each other.’ She paused, looking at the ink that, no matter how hard she scrubbed, would stain the edges of her fingernails. ‘I’ve… made up my mind about that.’
‘Well if you’ve made up your mind then you’ve no need of my opinion, have you? Just tell me when you’ve decided whether you’re leaving or not so I can dig up a new reporter from somewhere.’
‘That was what I wanted to talk to you about.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Would I have to leave? If I said yes to Charlie, I mean.’
‘You’d have to leave when you pair were hitched, naturally.’
‘You say that like it’s a fact. I could be married to Charlie and still do my job, couldn’t I?’
He laughed. ‘You what?’
‘Well, couldn’t I?’ she persisted. ‘No one expects Charlie to leave his job if he gets married.’
‘Charlie don’t have a house to keep.’
‘I keep a house already, Reg. I keep house for me and Dad, and I have shifts most nights at the ARP shelter, but I still manage to do my job every day. I don’t see why it should be any different if I was married.’
‘It’s always different when women are married.’
‘Why?’
He took up his stick so he could approach her desk.
‘Look, lass, I’m not saying it’s fair,’ he said, adopting a gentler tone. ‘It’s the way of the world, that’s all.’
‘Why does the world have to be that way?’ She felt a sob bubbling up in her throat and choked it back. Reg would only be embarrassed if she gave in to emotion.
‘Because it can’t work any other way, if we want to keep making new people and bringing them up to be good ones.’ He sighed. ‘You’re a good writer, Bobby. I wouldn’t want to see that go to waste. If you wanted to write bits for us as a freelance once you’ve a couple of bairns under your belt, I’d always be happy to consider them. But you can’t think you can bring up a family and work for me too.’
‘I could find a way. If you’d only compromise a little, I could make it work.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re deluding yourself, lass.’
‘No I’m not,’ Bobby murmured, although she wasn’t quite sure she believed herself any more.
‘You’ll marry, then in a few months, you’d find a little one was on the way,’ Reg said. ‘That’s how it happens, mostly. The next year it’d be the same again, and probably the year after that, until soon you’ve got a pack of bairns hanging off your skirts. You’re wrong if you think I can pay you enough to hire a nursemaid for them.’
‘We’ll have Charlie’s salary too.’
